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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22598536">its origin is the human heart</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandthetruth/pseuds/loveandthetruth'>loveandthetruth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dishonored (Video Games)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canonical Character Death, Death in Childbirth, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Feelings Realisation, First Kiss, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Loneliness, Loyalty, Minor Character Death, Pre-Canon, making mistakes and apologising for them</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 14:42:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,634</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22598536</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveandthetruth/pseuds/loveandthetruth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“We men and women are all in the same boat, upon a stormy sea. We owe to each other a terrible and tragic loyalty.”</p><p>Jessamine and Corvo, growing together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Corvo Attano/Jessamine Kaldwin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>its origin is the human heart</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/lillypillylies/gifts">lillypillylies</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She had been hard pressed to find anyone to play with since Delilah had been… sent away. It made something curl in her stomach to think of it -- it was just an accident, she hadn't meant for Delilah to get in so much trouble, she hadn't meant for any of it. And now she was alone. Mother kept promising a brother or sister, but until then this cat seemed to be her best chance at companionship. She had been creeping carefully after it for so long but she almost had it, certain that if she could coax it to come inside with her out of the icy cold and lap up a plate of milk, both of them would be happier. A sharp shout rang out -- her name? was that her name? </p><p>Jessamine turned, startled to see a pair of guards looking up at her. Caught between the realisation that she had climbed higher than she had expected, the fear that she was going to be in trouble again, and the sound of the cat mewling and loping easily away, she took an uncalculated step. She came out of her careful hunch, turning back to the cat with dismay, only for her foot to go out from under her, and then the waterlock roof went out from under her as well.</p><p>The water, when she hit it, was so cold she wanted to cry, wanted to scream, but she couldn't even breathe, her whole body locking up as if it had turned her entirely to ice. She was aware of things as if far away, weight and pressure, something pinching or prickling, snatches of light and air, a pain in her jaw, her throat and then everything was burning, even the river water her lungs were hacking up.</p><p>Voices, someone's hands on her, a coat being pressed around her and then more hands and more voices. She couldn't hear them over the chattering of her teeth and then someone, warmer than the first, was scooping her up.</p><p>Jessamine caught a glimpse of a guard, blurry and soaked and shivering as hard as she was and then things fell away from her again.</p>
<hr/><p>Jessamine had been well now for a few days, from the gossip amongst the palace staff, but she was still withdrawn, standing almost behind her mother. Corvo tried to give her a small smile, despite his own discomfort at the affair, wondering if the young princess wanted to be there as little as he did, and hoped she hadn't gotten in trouble; chasing cats seemed a more harmless pastime than anything he had gotten up to at that age.</p><p>Jessamine had fevered for some time -- he had managed to shield her from the worst of the bites as they swam around to the canal, but the water had already gotten into her. Corvo had only suffered a few days of a chill. The guards made sure he had hot rum that first night for throwing himself in and saving her, but the officers called it a waste of good booze and put a stop to that. When Curnow, who had been with him on that fateful shift, tried to speak up for him, they'd put him on the prison rota for the next month. </p><p>Corvo himself kept his mouth shut, they already hated him for being an outsider, and for being better than them. He had some favour with the Emperor -- perhaps more now -- so there was little they could do to remove him, but in their snide and underhand way they made it clear that he wasn't welcome. They hated him more now, saving their princess with his filthy foreign hands, but Corvo had stopped caring what they thought of him -- even before he had saved a child from drowning. </p><p>The Empress held out a gilt envelope, a bonus to his pay, which he tried to refuse. She pressed it firmly into his hand, putting the other over it, and he stood for a while with his hands trapped between hers as she thanked him. He didn't know what to do with the attention, and he certainly didn't know what to do with the money, hadn't known what to do with any of his pay since his envelopes had been returned to him with the note telling him of his mother's death. </p>
<hr/><p>He almost couldn't bring himself to kneel, but she stood there, back straight and shoulders set, as brave and determined as a twelve year old could look, holding the Protector's badge in both hands and almost daring him to tell her that she was making a mistake. Corvo glanced up at the Emperor and Empress and watched their faces carefully, surely they had someone else they would have preferred, some young lord they had promised favour to, but if they were surprised they hid it well. There was a moment's glance between them and then the Emperor nodded and clapped first, the room joining him.</p><p>So, he knelt, and she fixed the silver bar, engraved with the swans and crown of the family crest, onto his chest, and folded her hands carefully in front of her. He stood and bowed, first to her, and then to the Emperor and Empress, and then stood to look around to the polite applause from the scowling faces surrounding him. If he knew anyone who would have congratulated him, they wouldn't be standing in this room.</p><p>He stood straighter and allowed himself a small swell of pride, a shadow of that old cocksure arrogance before Dunwall had stripped him of it. The Duke had once plucked him off the streets and now he was elevated again, and if it was an affront to them, then all the better. The title, the palace, that was all they were interested in, but not Corvo, and he knew that none of them were as good -- he was faster, stronger, more determined -- and they would never be able to protect her like he would. </p><p>He looked down then, at Jessamine. She was still watching him, but her blank, formal expression had broken. Her smile was small, but utterly certain, and his heart lifted a little more, never wanting to give that certainty a chance to waver.</p>
<hr/><p>Jessamine shook, wanting to cry, but there didn't seem to be space for her tears in the anxious whirl of her thoughts. Now that she was old enough to know these things, her mother and her tutors had explained that childbirth was messy and not as beautiful as books would sometimes have her believe. When she and Corvo had been pushed out of the room, voices had tried to reassure her that it was normal, and that everything would be fine, but Jessamine had seen blood and the baby hadn't even come yet.</p><p>"It's going to be all right," she said, trying to sound confident, and then, "Isn't it?"</p><p>They sat near one of the good windows looking over the district, far from her mother's cries, and Corvo was quiet, taking a careful breath. Jessamine could tell -- because Corvo was always quiet and always breathed carefully but Jessamine could <em> tell </em> -- that he was trying not to tell her something that wasn't true, something he didn't know for sure. </p><p>"She had you. It's difficult sometimes, but most women get through it and your mother has some of the best help in the Isles."</p><p>He was as doubtful as her. She remembered the sharpness of his voice when he had told her to call for the physician and her father -- in that order -- while he had helped her mother stumble to her room. Still, Jessamine felt strangely consoled that he hadn't brushed her off with false comforts, and he was right in what he had said. </p><p>"Thank you," she said, after a minute.</p><p>"We can only wait," he murmured. "It's not easy, but you're strong."</p><p>"I'm not strong," she said, before she could help herself. "That's why you're here."</p><p>"Well, I'm here. We can be strong together, all right?"</p><p>"All right." She couldn't quite keep the reluctance out of her voice. She didn't want to be strong, she wanted everything to be -- to be-- </p><p>She hid her face in the sleeve of Corvo's coat and then shamefully climbed over into his lap where she would be safe, and after a moment his arms came loosely around her, and she felt the rumble in his chest when he said, "There's more than one way to be strong, Jessamine. Trust yourself."</p>
<hr/><p>Corvo turned away with Jessamine, one hand steady on her shoulder, but the exhausted rasp of Beatrix's voice called him back. At her signal, he nudged Jessamine toward her father who waited by the door, as pale faced as Beatrix herself, as any of them, and they both left. Beatrix motioned him closer, and closer still until he sat down at the edge of the bed, where she folded her hands over his. The sheets had been replaced, but the faint scent of blood still lingered in the room. </p><p>Even so near, he had to lean forward to hear her. It was obscenely familiar, and he was sure that several nobles in the court would happily murder him for it, but he supposed there was no point, now, in pretending that they weren't friends, or something like it -- they were often in the company of one another in their care of Jessamine -- this empress who had the same name as his sister, long gone, and who treated him as his mother might have if she had still lived, if Corvo hadn't left her. </p><p>The thought of losing Beatrix made him feel strangely adrift and a little ashamed that he had gotten so attached. It was still stranger that she seemed to know it, to feel sorry for it, for him.</p><p>"You won't be alone here," Beatrix said, her voice having all the strength of cheap paper. "I know you -- you feel like you have no one here, that you don't belong. We… need people like you." She paused often, drawing breath with enough difficulty that Corvo's lungs ached. "You're like her. She's a precocious child, I know, but she has a tender heart. So do you, and a good one, which is why I trust you. You'll take care of her, won't you, Corvo?"</p><p>Corvo's attention was always on keeping Jessamine safe, but whenever Beatrix was around she seemed able to draw things out of him that he otherwise would never say. He knew he was something of a curiosity to her but she seemed kind, and when he had spilled the tale of losing Beatrici in Morley, hopefully to some kind of happiness, he didn't think he had imagined softness in her eyes. When she offered that perhaps they could look into it the next time business took them there, he had believed her to be sincere.</p><p>She never asked if he had found happiness in Gristol, he supposed it was plain to see that the answer was no.</p><p>Sometimes he thought about it, leaving and finding Beatrici, but if he told himself that she would welcome him, it made him question why she had left him at all. As it was, there was perhaps one person who might feel his absence in this place, the young princess who was always looking over her shoulder to check that he was near.</p><p>Beatrici had never said goodbye, and, knowingly or not, he had traded away the chance to hold his mother's hand at the end. Corvo held onto Beatrix's hand, kept his eyes on her pale face, determined not to flinch away. </p>
<hr/><p>Jessamine always felt like she was moving through a haze, or that a haze was moving through her. A strange, cold emptiness. She couldn't fathom the unfairness of it, her mother having to leave her. She couldn't think of it and she couldn't not think of it either, more and more distracted.</p><p>She remembered sometimes the kind of mistake she could make when afraid, and she didn't know what reckless, cruel thing she might have done if not for Corvo's quiet disapproval. His eyes were always on her, and he never said, but she could tell when he was disappointed in her. He wanted her to be better, he knew she could be strong, but he would never make her do things she didn't want to do. Everyone else sighed at her, or made excuses for her, or gave her lectures about how an empress should behave, and smile, and feign politeness even when she didn't want to.  Corvo was only as quiet and as solid as ever, never flinching at her temper, never sighing at her sulks, never pushing her to behave. </p><p>It had seemed a long while since she had explored the palace. Nothing seemed to feel worth doing any more, but Corvo had asked her to show him something of the palace he hadn't seen before. She had been reluctant but she found herself unwinding, melting, as they wandered through the halls. Corvo sometimes stopped to look at the paintings, to press his fingers to the carved patterns in the pillars, to look out of the window, and she looked at him with a little of the same wonder. </p><p>His words were often in her head, "There's more than one way to be strong." Sometimes she couldn't believe it, but she wanted to be, and she liked that he thought she was. So she let frustrations go, sinking down like a storm wrecked ship, and stopped being surly and snippy -- not because an empress wasn't supposed to be those things but because she didn't want to be those things. She wanted to be worthy of respect, none more so than to Corvo, who was so loyal and so worthy of her own trust and respect.</p><p>So she took him up to the deserted passage, and she could feel his wary eyes on her as they climbed the stairs higher, but he didn't complain, even as his glances out of the window grew a little shorter and his mouth a little thinner, bracing himself. When she threw open the door to the balcony he made a small sound, like a breath caught in his throat, and stayed in the doorway as she stepped out. </p><p>She held out her hand to him, and though he had always balked when she wanted to take her books up to the roof, he slowly raised his arm and put his hand in hers and let her tug him outside, wide eyes darting across the rooftops of the Tower District and over the currents of the Wrenhaven. She hadn't imagined before how much he could trust her too. It made her feel light, somehow, like an anchor being pulled up and setting her free of the last of her grief. </p>
<hr/><p>The Duke had seemed warm when he had greeted Corvo, almost like an old friend, but now the seriousness of his face made him seem almost cold by comparison, and Corvo seemed uncomfortable. It made her frown, watching them. They were talking about Corvo's home and the fact that he hadn't visited and if he would prefer to take care of his mother's things while he was here. Jessamine wondered if he would like to go but worried about leaving her behind, and she thought wistfully that perhaps they could go together. Corvo could show her Karnaca as he had known it, and for a while Jessamine wouldn't have to be the princess with a dead mother.</p><p>"We can go now," she said, impulsive after the opening had worn her out. "I'd like to see."</p><p>Corvo looked a different kind of uncomfortable then, but the Duke gave her a kindly look before she could think to regret it, saying, "It would be quite an adventure for a young empress."</p><p>The Duke and her father exchanged glances -- the Duke's seemed to be more indulgent, almost fond -- and then her father gave Corvo a reluctant nod. Corvo bowed, the matter decided, and the Duke called one of the staff and spoke to them quietly, before they disappeared and returned a few minutes later with a conservatory uniform for Jessamine and a plain worn coat for Corvo.</p><p>"It would be useful to see Karnaca outside of a carriage, wouldn't it, father?" she said, taking the clothes with a thrill of excitement.</p><p>She wasn't sure he agreed, but he sighed and said to Corvo, "Take her. Don't let her be seen."</p>
<hr/><p>It was almost as he remembered it, but there was little of use to him here. Some of the furniture, books, some tinned meat that was still sealed, and his mother's belongings could be donated to the poor. He wasn't sure what to do with the trophy. It felt useless in his hands when he lifted it from the dresser next to his mother's bed. Maybe if he'd never won it he would have been here and maybe his mother would be alive. </p><p>He held it in a clenched fist for almost too long before putting it behind the loose bricks of their little hiding place. Jessamine was quiet, watching him pick through things, likely not realising what she had gotten into in her desperation to leave. What a pair they were, motherless and alone. He wondered what she thought of this little house he had been born in, and if she wanted to live in that palace any more than he did, if they just didn't have anywhere else.</p><p>Her face was impassive as she held out a worn notebook to him, and his heart clenched when he turned the cover to find his mother's fluid script. He glanced at her but she only sat down without a word, so he joined her on the floor, though it was many minutes before he could bring himself to read. It was many more before he could bring himself to close the book, ink marred by salt water, his helpless tears, years too late.</p><p>She was in his space almost before he was aware of it, but instinct alone made him recoil before her lips touched his. She was flushed with embarrassment when he could focus on her again, and he could feel the heat in his own face too. "Why--?"</p><p>"Because -- it's you…?" She seemed almost painfully vulnerable, wide eyes, face full of yearning for comfort.</p><p>"I don't know what that means." He stood, the diary falling from his lap, trying to put some distance between them. His emotions had been a storm since they'd set foot on the island -- grief the sea and guilt the sky -- and he couldn't look at her, wishing he hadn't let her come here to throw herself into the maelstrom.</p><p>Jessamine stood as well, looking around the empty house. "We're not so different, are we? We've both... " For a moment Corvo thought himself safe, but then she straightened up and looked squarely at him. "I trust you. I want -- something. Something nice, something safe, and I trust you. Is that so bad?"</p><p>He sagged back against the wall. "It's not right," he said after a moment.</p><p>She was already almost as tall as he was, and it felt suddenly dangerous. She wouldn't need him to bend down to her, and if she took three steps -- two, now -- forward, what would he do? He was stronger than her, but he didn't know if he would ever use that strength against her.</p><p>"It doesn't have to mean anything." Corvo's breath escaped him. It could have sounded like a laugh. "It's just a kiss. Just a moment, can I--"</p><p>"I don't want to kiss you." The words came out harder than he meant. He had come here to put the past behind him, he didn't want any of this, and even if it hadn't been here or now, it would still be true. He didn't want to hurt her either -- he hadn't held out his hands for her heart to crush it between his fingers. In the week's after Beatrix's death he had tried to redirect her grief, but now he was caught in the net of it himself. "Jessamine--"</p><p>"Who else can I ask? Who else in this world wouldn't use this against me?" That was true, and the thought made Corvo sick, that she might turn to someone else and they might twist it into something for their own gain. It was true that she was safe with him, and for a moment he wavered, but then she took a step towards him, and another, that look of cold resolve on her face, and she said, "You'd do it if I asked you."</p><p>That was true as well. He would hold back the tide of all the world's pain, if he knew how, if he thought it would do her any good. "Don't ask me," he said, low, too aware of his lips moving, too aware of his body pressed back against the wall, his clammy palms clenched tight. Her face was dispassionate, but her eyes were wet. "Please." </p><p>And then she stepped back, and Corvo could take a breath, realising then that he'd been holding it, until the silence stretched on as she sat down against the far wall, not looking so much hurt as troubled. "Jessamine?"</p><p>"It's all right." She looked up to give him a brief, tight smile. "Let's just pretend this didn't happen."</p>
<hr/><p>Pretend was what they did, making their way back to the Duke's palace in tense silence, a tension that stayed, filling every space they shared together.</p><p>It was months before their working relationship went back to the way it had been, months before Corvo looked at her with more than a glance, more still before the hard set of his shoulders eased. Jessamine could see the way he was wound tight whenever they were alone, the way he sought not to be whenever possible.</p><p>Things eased slowly -- a respectful nod, a shared glance, sometimes a word of approval, sometimes caution. When he laughed in her presence, at a tale that Anton was telling them, she felt that maybe he had forgiven her, though she could never tell if he was still angry at her underneath, if what she had done haunted him more than what she hadn't, the way it haunted her, and still they didn't speak of it.</p><p>She didn't know what she had been thinking, only perhaps that they had been matched in their grief. She hadn't understood why the Duke had sent him there until she found the place empty, silent, and thick with dust, and then she knew she had intruded, and then… It was the worst mistake she could have made, and sometimes when she was trying to sleep she would see his face, the look of utter betrayal, hear again her words and the bleak desperation in Corvo's voice when he had replied, "Don't ask me."</p><p>It was two years to the day since her mother's death that she found herself that close to him again, when her father, his health not fully recovered from the hard winter, had to leave her two steps into a dance. He gave her hands to Corvo, who was a little startled but took her hands gracefully. Jessamine couldn't help a little smile as he watched the other dancers at first, counting the steps, and then picked up the rhythm.</p><p>"You never told me you could dance," she said slightly teasing.</p><p>"Well, I've never been invited before." He managed to make the words honest and wry instead of the condemnation it could have been.</p><p>It made her go quiet, watching him, his eyes flickering, his attention on the whole room even as he turned them smoothly around it. It was always incredible how he managed to be worrying about keeping her safe no matter what else was happening. Jessamine both admired and pitied him for the way he was so tightly controlled. </p><p>She had seen that control broken once, seen the way he had shivered, the same way that urn had shivered before it had fallen from its delicate perch and shattered on the ground. Jessamine couldn't tell if she had saved her friendship with Corvo from breaking, the way she hadn't saved her friendship with Delilah. Perhaps this was just who she was, a selfish breaker of everything dear to her. Had she broken her mother somehow when she had come out of her years ago?</p><p>They had beaten Delilah for Jessamine's mistake and they had been so young, then. Corvo was a grown man, an outsider that they already hated for being Protector -- the first burden Jessamine had placed on him, though she hadn't given him a chance to refuse that one -- and it made her cold to think what they might have done to him if they knew that he had touched her, or even how close they had come, never mind that she had wanted it. </p><p>"I'm sorry." </p><p>His eyes came back to her, and she fancied she saw a fond sort of bemusement in them. "It's all right. I'm not here to dance, and Dunwall ballrooms aren't really my style."</p><p>"I meant... in Karnaca. I'm sorry." It was hard to hold his gaze then, the shame of it making her eyes water. "You were hurting and I--"</p><p>"We both were."</p><p>"Still. I betrayed your trust, trying to -- to bully you into something you didn't want to do."</p><p>He opened his mouth then, as if wanting to deny it, but Corvo had never said an untrue thing to her in all the time she had known him.</p><p>"I understand why you did it," he said, after some consideration, and she gave him such a dubious look that it made him laugh, or what passed for a laugh for him. "Because you were lonely and we were alone. Because we were both hurting."</p><p>"Because I trusted you."</p><p>"Yes." There was a tightening in his shoulders under her hand.</p><p>"Is that bad? Should I not trust you?"</p><p>There was that little laugh again. Would he deny that he was trustworthy? "I want to say an Empress should trust no one, but that seems no way to live."</p><p>"You told me to trust myself once. I'm most myself when I'm with you." His gaze flickered towards her and then away again, something soft and proud in it, she thought. "So who do you trust?"</p><p>There was a pause. "I trust you."</p><p>"Even now, after...?"</p><p>"Maybe more now." And then he sighed, the music drawing gently to a close. "You're human, Jessamine. You're going to make mistakes just like everyone else. I don't hold that against you, and you shouldn't hold it against yourself."</p><p>He bowed, hands tightening around hers for an instant before letting her go.</p>
<hr/><p>There was something about the way he went loose when they were alone that made her feel more relaxed in turn. It was far from an ideal circumstance, not with rumours of an assassin on the grounds, but they were safe enough sealed in here, and she was always safe with Corvo.</p><p>"If I ask you a question, will you tell me the truth?" Corvo glanced aside to her with a wry look, and Jessamine couldn't help but laugh, because of course, he had never lied to her. "Do you regret that I made you Protector?"</p><p>Jessamine -- always proud of the way she knew how to read him -- could see the surprise go through him, a small jolt, and his look turning focused. "Sometimes," he said, after a minute.</p><p>"Would it be better if I -- removed you from the position?"</p><p>This silence was a little more stunned, that careful breath, that slight widening of his eyes. He was thinking about it, she realised, turning it over in his head. "No."</p><p>"Why not?" She wasn't sure why she had brought it up, but now that her suspicions had been confirmed, she couldn't help but pick at it.</p><p>"Where would I go?" he said, simply.</p><p>"Anywhere. You could stay in Dunwall, you could go home, you could--"</p><p>"I am home," he said, and she thought that maybe he hadn't meant to say it because a flush came to his cheeks, and he glanced at her again, embarrassed. </p><p>Well, here they were. "Because you love me?" The flush deepened, and because he wouldn't lie to her, he couldn't say no. "<em> Do </em> you love me?" There was that pause again that gave him away. "Oh."</p><p>"I don't... like to call it love," he said, rueful, and Jessamine felt almost dizzy. "But I suppose I don't know what else to call it."</p><p>It was all she could do to breathe, for a little while, but she was determined to swim in this river she had fallen into. "Why did you say you didn't want to kiss me?"</p><p>"I didn't want to. That was true."</p><p>Jessamine considered that for a moment. "Because I was too young?"</p><p>He shook his head and then shrugged, and she so loved the way he told her the truth, sometimes tempered, sometimes in the things he didn't say, but always the truth. "That was one of many reasons."</p><p>There were a million questions she wanted to ask, and what came out was, "Why don't you ever lie?"</p><p>"I don't--"  He caught himself. "It's just that there are people who aren't worth the lie, and there are people who deserve better than being lied to."</p><p>"Which one am I?" she asked, and then laughed again when he gave her a long-suffering look.</p><p>They fell quiet, listening to far off shouts, knowing it would be a while yet before they were missed. Anton knew where they were, and would be able to signal safety without spoiling Jessamine's secret hiding place. She slumped a little more and finally gave up, pulling the pins out of her hair, with a yawn, and combing it through with her fingers until it came down over her shoulders, and raised an eyebrow when she saw Corvo half smiling.</p><p>"That took an age to put up," he murmured.</p><p>"Well. Nobody will mind if I'm not presentable after an evening like this. I'm sure I'll be allowed to take a tumbler of whiskey and a good book and go straight to bed."</p><p>There was something indefinable about Corvo's reaction to that, some tiny shiver that passed over his features, but Jessamine saw it, and Corvo saw that she had and flushed, looking away.</p><p>Jessamine bit her tongue for a moment, possibilities spilling out in front of her. "Are there still so many reasons?" He didn't say anything. "Do you want to kiss me?" Again, he stayed silent, stayed looking away, so she slipped down from the chair to sit facing him on the floor, their thighs almost touching. "Corvo?"</p><p>"It would matter," he said low, almost warning.</p><p>"Good. I want it to matter."</p><p>Corvo's eyes narrowed and he didn't have so much control that he could help that one flicker of his gaze down to her lips. She leaned forward a little and waited -- and waited. She finally pulled away a with little curl of disappointment in her belly. Corvo leaned forward and kissed her, then,  clumsy, as if rushing for the chance before it disappeared and then looking almost shocked at himself.</p><p>"Have you never done that before?"</p><p>"Yes," he said, a little offended, and then after a moment, "It's just you. I don't -- know how to kiss <em> you </em>."</p><p>"Why?"</p><p>"I don't know -- I told you that what I feel for you is different than love. It's… deeper, more confusing. You're..." he trailed off, looking a little lost.</p><p>"You don't want to kiss me."</p><p>"I didn't say that. I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't wanted to." His frown went a little sharp, as if reminding her of what had happened in Karnaca.</p><p>Jessamine felt hot then, as if the kiss had not been so meaningful as the admission that he had wanted to do it. She shifted, straddling his thighs carefully, keeping a little distance between them, not wanting to crowd him, and his breath caught, and his eyes fluttered closed for a heartbeat and then he was looking at her again.</p><p>"This isn't -- this can't happen."</p><p>She didn't know what to say that wouldn't be a lie. He was probably right -- there had been many reasons then, and many now, but they trusted each other. "It seems like it's happening," she said, in the end, helpless.</p><p>His hands were shaking where they hovered and even when they came to rest on her arms, and a sound escaped him as they slid up to her shoulders, fingers curling in the ends of her hair. There was a slightly dazed look in his eyes, his lips parted, drinking her in.</p><p>She felt flushed and dazed herself, clothes too tight, skin too tight. "Have you been wanting to touch me for so long?" She almost didn't recognise her voice.</p><p>"I didn't," he said, and then drew an unsteady breath. "Or -- I didn't know. Jessamine--"</p><p>She leaned in, and this time he met her, his hands going hungry on her, and hers on him, and then they were kissing like they had been waiting a thousand years, and then as if they had been doing it all along.</p><p>"I love you--" he said abruptly, like the words had been drawn out of him, pulling her closer, and then there was a sound like a sob, small and choked, and then he was just holding her painfully tight, shaking.</p><p>He wasn't the only one trembling. Jessamine had broken something here, she knew, but she thought then that maybe it was something that needed to break. "I love you."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title from:<br/>“Loyalty cannot be blueprinted. It cannot be produced on an assembly line. In fact, it cannot be manufactured at all, for its origin is the human heart – the center of self-respect and human dignity.” – Maurice R. Franks</p><p>Summary quote from G.K. Chesterton</p></blockquote></div></div>
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